


White Roses and Baby's Breath

by wrought



Category: Heathers (1988)
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 13:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10023701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrought/pseuds/wrought
Summary: She must’ve still been alive when he left her. She must’ve used up the last of her energy to painstakingly crawl to the bomb and curl around it, hugging it close to her chest. Why did she have to be such a fucking martyr?





	

They wrestled for the gun.

It was a crude mirror of their first night together; the flushed lips and eager hands replaced by digging elbows and sharp teeth. Veronica was straddling JD, growling, when the gun went off. For a second that felt like eternity, they just stared at each other. The booming music of the pep rally above them and the invasively humid heat of the boiler room all melted away, and it was just them.

Just him.

His father destroyed an old theater once, years ago. They went on a tour together the day before and his father was animated the whole time, waving his hands around mockingly. “Fucking sentimentality, right? Pretentious bastards would stick their dicks in this heap of rotting plaster if they could.” JD was younger then, smaller, his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket as his eyes wondered. Above him, there was an elaborate mural on the high-domed ceiling, where angels and martyrs were rendered with a careful hand in soft golds and radiant blues. No one did death quite as prettily as the Renaissance artists.

Veronica came close, though. Her bow-shaped lips trembled as she tried to speak. “You…” She coughed, specks of hot blood hitting his face. Her impossibly dark eyes grew darker as she slumped, her chin clumsily hitting his shoulder as if she’d just dozed off.

For a few shocked seconds, he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

His hands were shaking as badly as leaves as he wrapped them around her back, hugging her close. She seemed smaller then, the bones of her ribs seeming as fragile as a bird’s as he held her tighter, tight enough that he was sure she would break.  The front of his jacket was growing horribly wet and sticky warm. The rest of the world slowly came back like a throbbing migraine; the in-rhythm stomping of feet on wood, the heat, the subtle sound of ticking.

Numbers burned red in the darkness: 0:58, 0:57, 0:56. He gently rolled Veronica’s body off onto the ground, before climbing to his feet. This joint was going to blow and unfortunately, there was no time for the sentimentality. He paused at the door, feeling a need to say final words of some sort, something snappy or heartfelt enough to conclude the relationship. There she lay, face-down in a growing puddle of her own blood and suddenly nothing seemed genuine enough. Besides, she’d been the wordsmith anyway.

He closed the heavy door behind him and walked down the empty school halls, cupping his hands to light a cigarette. The sun was blinding once he’d stepped outside. It was almost summer break and it certainly felt that way, the sky startlingly blue and the clouds as puffy as cotton. He took a drag, looking down at his watch. Any second now.

Seconds later, the ground shook and panicked screaming could be heard from inside the school building. He frowned. Screaming wasn’t typically a part of the whole being-incinerated-alive deal. And neither was crashing out of the building in a mass panic, but hey, there was the entirety of the student body. Some of the kids and teachers were burned, or bloody, but as he learned later, there was only one dead.

It took a while for the authorities to figure out who had died of course, as it was incredibly difficult to identify scorched flesh on walls, but they managed and her funeral was scheduled for a week and a half later. JD attended and sat in the very back, in an uncomfortably starched suit. He’d burned his coat, to destroy the evidence but also out of respect for the dead. Veronica’s family and classmates were in attendance and while surely there hadn’t been enough of her to scrap into a coffin, a big mahogany one sat in the front of the church anyway, surrounded by white roses and baby’s breath. Innocence and everlasting love.

Heather Chandler’s funeral hadn’t been unlike this one. Dark clothes and crying and flowers, and really if you’ve been to one funeral, you’ve been to them all. What was different was that he and Veronica had been sitting with their heads bowed together, with all of the mischief and amicability of new lovers. She couldn’t seem to keep her hands off of him in those days, with her finger always tracing the lines of his open palm or resting on the crook of his elbow. He’d gotten an unbelievable rush when Heather’s lifeless body hit the glass table, and with how Veronica was giggling during the reception he was sure that she’d felt it, too.

She must’ve still been alive when he left her. She must’ve used up the last of her energy to painstakingly crawl to the bomb and curl around it, hugging it close to her chest. Why did she have to be such a fucking martyr? Why did she choose to save all of these sad excuses for people over him? He had no doubt that they would all be milking her death out for the cameras until they moved on to the next spectacle and forgot all about her. He didn’t realize that he’d been clenching his fists until he could feel the sharp pain. He brought his hand to his mouth thoughtlessly and licked away the sharp metallic taste of blood.

The rest of it went in a daze. After receiving one too many pitying looks at the reception, JD decided to walk home. The weather was as gray and turbulent as days about commemorating death were supposed to be. He eventually reached his house and kicked the door closed behind him.

His father’s voice drifted from the kitchen. “Yeah, hang on for a sec’.”

His old man’s head popped in the door, his face screwed in concern that JD knew was feigned, like how people were supposed to look when they were concerned. “Hey, sport. You doing alright?”

“Just fine dad.”

“Sure you are, champ.” Satisfied, his head disappeared and he was in the kitchen talking on his phone again. JD dragged his feet all the way to his room, slamming the door behind him. He couldn’t imagine doing anything other than sleeping, collapsing on his bed with all his clothes on.

***

It was a dream he had before, standing outside of the public library. He knew on that day, birds had been chirping and there had been the bustling sound of traffic behind him, but in the dream, it was always deathly silent. A figure stepped into the tinted window, and he expected it to be his late mother. Her hair was too dark and wild, though, cropped just above her shoulders. No. He started running toward her, though it felt as if he was moving through molasses and he tried to yell her name, but nothing came out. Her face was expressionless and rather than wave, she pressed her hand against the glass.

**Author's Note:**

> *shrug*


End file.
